An Alternative Response to Global Chaos

Wrote this to a friend last night. Wasn't going to share, but people keep asking how I am feeling.. so here is a bit. It's hard to put into words.. I am thinking about France, Baghdad, angry, fearful cops. I am thinking about Bangladesh, Brussels, Istanbul. I am thinking about global political systems. I am thinking about the coup in Turkey.

In times like these, it is so easy to despair – to throw up our hands and cry and become paralyzed, it is so easy to move to anger and fear -- to look for someone, belief or institution to blame.. We want an easy answer, an enemy, a clear solution -- to blot them out of existence and be safe again or a reason to hide in our beds.

It’s never that simple.

These cycles come and go for all of human history. My heart was broken open long ago. This is no surprise. I cannot feign shock at the extremes of humanity.

I feel for the families who have lost their loved ones, and I think of my mother, and of the mustard seed.

In times like these, I lean back and fall into the wisdom teachings. The vast emptiness that I experience myself to be. An open love – everything and nothing – at once. I close my eyes and fall backward into the unknown.

There are no others. No need to cry or rage, unless there is. There is only this life happening, waiting to be met.

I believe in the worth of life. Everything is a mystery, self most of all. There is nothing that can be known.

It is easy to become myopic in times of shock – to forget that this very existence is a gossamer thread, that the planet is a speck in the universe, that we are all just light.

And yet when we remember – something happens – we can stand in the midst of it all, with hearts broken open long ago. Edgeless hearts that can take it all in, moment by moment, feel it all profoundly and not despair. Just respond with love. Just live and breathe and move and live and breathe and move. Despair is a made up story about a future that we can’t see yet. Don’t let it stop you.

In every moment – infinite joy and infinite sorrow. How then do we label life? Just life. No need for value. How then do we predict the future? We don’t. We stay present. How do we know if this is the end of days, or the darkness before the dawn, or just what is coming to light, or really better than before?

We don’t.

We just… stay open. breathe. And listen. From the deepest stillness within.

Resist the urge to act out. To make up stories. To come down on one side.

Though counter-intuitive, be still and listen.

Life will reach out her hand to you, like a breeze, and guide you…this way. And you will take a step, in presence, as love. Like a mother.

You will reach out with innocence and trust. Now.

And there is no need to make meaning, label or to know.

There is only shining as the light you are.

And, if it’s dark, shine brighter.

And get curious. It is time for courageous questions, not kneejerk answers.

Look more deeply into what is happening, and the causes, keep moving through the variegated layers to the core. Especially now, as it finally becomes so clear it is happening globally. One family. One immaculately interconnected being.

We are invited to ask:

Why is there pain in the world right now? Why is there joy?

What makes young people kill themselves - individually - and violently as part of extremest groups? What makes them inspired and unified?

What is making trained officers behave with 400 year old mindsets? What is the cause of authentic empathy in the ones who care?

What makes politicians sell themselves to big money and power rather than care about the welfare of their constituents? What makes someone risk taking on the powers that be in the name of service?

Why are so many blind to the current and future health of this planet, when it is the only one we have to live on? Why are the ones who care, caring?

What’s broken? What’s working?

What do we really want?

What am I called to do? to be?

Ask not until you get an answer, but until the questions change.

And then keep looking. Watch the paradigm shift and change. Let the bottom drop out. If you really want something new.

Get still and listen.

And then act, not from anger, despair or fear, but from your unique authenticity, unknowing, union and love. Act because you are moved.

Life will show the way. But only now. And now. And now. And without naming.

Shine bright. Love more.

Your compassion and wisdom are your greatest strength. Where you move from determines what you create.

So fall into the peace in your heart and let it create peace in the world.

<3 Zoë ‪#‎oneworld‬ ‪#‎onefamily‬ ‪#‎onelight‬